Book picks similar to
New Frontiers by Joshua Dalzelle


science-fiction
sci-fi
scifi
space-opera

Aurora: CV-01


Ryk Brown - 2011
    And this is only the beginning… "Aurora: CV-01" is 77,000 word novel, and is Episode 1 of The Frontiers Saga. Episode 2, "The Rings of Haven"is available now!

Cold Welcome


Elizabeth Moon - 2017
    But instead she is thrown into danger unlike any other she has faced and finds herself isolated, unable to communicate with the outside world, commanding a motley group of unfamiliar troops, and struggling day by day to survive in a deadly environment with sabotaged gear. Only her undeniable talent for command can give her ragtag band a fighting chance.Yet even as Ky leads her team from one crisis to another, her family and friends refuse to give up hope, endeavoring to mount a rescue from halfway around the planet—a task that is complicated as Ky and her supporters find secrets others will kill to protect: a conspiracy infecting both government and military that threatens not only her own group’s survival but her entire home planet.

Off Armageddon Reef


David Weber - 2007
    But the Gbaba can detect the emissions of an industrial civilization, so the human rulers of Safehold have taken extraordinary measures: with mind control and hidden high technology, they've built a religion in which every Safeholdian believes, a religion designed to keep Safehold society medieval forever.800 years pass. In a hidden chamber on Safehold, an android from the far human past awakens. This "rebirth" was set in motion centuries before, by a faction that opposed shackling humanity with a concocted religion. Via automated recordings, "Nimue" - or, rather, the android with the memories of Lieutenant Commander Nimue Alban - is told her fate: she will emerge into Safeholdian society, suitably disguised, and begin the process of provoking the technological progress which the Church of God Awaiting has worked for centuries to prevent.Nothing about this will be easy. To better deal with a medieval society, "Nimue" takes a new gender and a new name, "Merlin." His formidable powers and access to caches of hidden high technology will need to be carefully concealed. And he'll need to find a base of operations, a Safeholdian country that's just a little more freewheeling, a little less orthodox, a little more open to the new.And thus Merlin comes to Charis, a mid-sized kingdom with a talent for naval warfare. He plans to make the acquaintance of King Haarahld and Crown Prince Cayleb, and maybe, just maybe, kick off a new era of invention. Which is bound to draw the attention of the Church...and, inevitably, lead to war.

Duel in the Dark


Jay Allan - 2016
    Three generations of its warriors have gone off to war, held the line against the larger, more powerful enemy. Now the fourth conflict is imminent, and the Confederation’s navy is on alert, positioned behind the frontier, waiting for the attack it knows is coming. The battleship Dauntless has spent the past ten months patrolling the border, deployed far forward of the main fleet, a forlorn hope, an advance guard positioned to give the warning of invasion. But no attack has come. Her crew is exhausted, and the aging battleship needs maintenance. With the fleet mobilized and the forward bases overloaded beyond capacity, she is sent clear across the Confederation, to a planet along the quiet and peaceful far frontier. Her crew is looking forward to a rest, and Dauntless herself is scheduled for a long-overdue maintenance session. But the quiet frontier isn’t what it seems…and when a distress call is received from one of the mining colonies on the edge of Confederation space, it falls to Captain Tyler Barron to take Dauntless forward, to find out what is happening, and to put a stop to it. Barron and his crew have their ship—and each other—but they can expect no other help. Suspicion is strong that Union deceit is at play, that the attack is some sort of diversion, intended to draw Confederation forces from the disputed border. The orders are clear. No ships will be transferred from the prospective battle line. Stopping whatever is happening on the rim is Barron’s responsibility, and his alone. Barron is the grandson of the Confederation’s great hero, the father of the modern navy. His family name has always carried privilege with it, and crushing responsibility. And now he must prove that he has inherited more from his famous grandfather than name and privilege. He must face the enemy, and win the victory…before the Confederation is caught between two enemies and destroyed. Blood on the Stars Reading Order Book 1: Duel in the Dark Book 2: Call to Arms (January 2017, Available now for preorder)

Earth Strike


Ian Douglas - 2010
    Now the creatures known as humans are near this momentous turning point.But an armed threat is approaching from deepest space, determined to prevent humankind from crossing over that boundary—by total annihilation if necessary.To the Sh'daar, the driving technologies of transcendent change are anathema and must be obliterated from the universe—along with those who would employ them. As their great warships destroy everything in their path en route to the Sol system, the human Confederation government falls into dangerous disarray.There is but one hope, and it rests with a rogue Navy Admiral, commander of the kilometer-long star carrier America, as he leads his courageous fighters deep into enemy space towards humankind's greatest conflict—and quite possibly its last.

Fear the Sky


Stephen Moss - 2014
    Years before they enter orbit, their approach will be announced by the flare of a thousand flames in the sky, their ships’ huge engines burning hard to slow them from the vast speeds needed to cross interstellar space. These foreboding lights will shine in our night sky like new stars, getting ever brighter until they outshine even the sun, casting ominous shadows and banishing the night until they suddenly blink out. Their technology is vastly superior to ours, and they know they cannot possibly lose the coming conflict. But they, like us, have found no answer to the destructive force of the atom, and they have no intention of facing the onslaught of our primitive nuclear arsenal, or the devastation it would wreak on the planet they crave. So they have flung out an advanced party in front of them, hidden within one of the countless asteroids randomly roaming the void. They do not want us, they want our planet. Their Agents are arriving.

Forget Nothing


Jason Anspach - 2020
    But the battles Republic marines face on strange and alien worlds are a far cry from the vaunted, brutal, no-holds-barred conflicts fought at the edge of the galaxy by the elite legionnaires.Until a devastating war erupts right in the Republic’s stellar backyard.Newly stationed on a mid-core planet being harassed by terrorist revolutionaries, Andien and her fellow "hullbusters" find themselves right in the middle of a desperate fight for survival. All their training, standards, discipline—all the hard paths—have led to this. If she and her fellow marines are to come out of this alive, Andien will have to find out who she truly is...and what she can become.Best-selling military science fiction author Jason Anspach and USMC/US Army veteran Michelle C. Meyers explore the rigors of combat, survival, and the human will in this edge-of-your-seat account set in the Galaxy’s Edge universe.©2020 Galaxy's Edge, LLC (P)2020 Audible Originals, LLC.

The Ember War


Richard Fox - 2015
    Humanity has a chance. In the near future, an alien probe arrives on Earth with a pivotal mission—help humanity survive an impending invasion by an alien armada so massive it can blot out the stars, or leave the human race to certain extinction. Despite overwhelming odds, the probe recruits a young inventor named Marc Ibarra to plan a daring gambit. To weather the coming storm, Ibarra must build a space fleet strong enough to face an implacable foe in a battle against annihilation.

Destroyer


Chris Fox - 2016
    Without warning. Without a trace. Fleet command chalks the attacks up to pirates, but Captain Dryker of the UFC Johnston isn’t buying it. Defying command, he leads his misfit crew into hostile territory in search of answers. They encounter a technologically superior foe unlike anything humanity has ever seen, one bent on the destruction of all sentient life. After 26,000 years the mythical Void Wraith have returned to begin the next Eradication. Humanity cannot stop them. Not without help. Captain Dryker’s only hope is to forge an alliance with mankind’s greatest enemy, the savage Tigris. One maverick captain, an unlikely crew, and an aging vessel are all that stand between humanity and the Eradication. “It’s like Battlestar Galactica and Mass Effect had a baby, and that baby was raised by Starcraft. I read this book in one sitting, and immediately looked for the next.”- The author’s totally biased friend.

First and Only


Dan Abnett - 1999
    For a thousand years, the Sabbat Worlds have been lost to the Imperium, claimed by the dread powers of Chaos. Now, a mighty crusade seeks to return the sector to Imperial rule. And at the forefront of that crusade are Colonel-Commissar Ibram Gaunt and the Tanith First and Only – better known as Gaunt’s Ghosts. Trapped in the grinding trench warfare of Fortis Binary, the Ghosts find themselves drawn into a conspiracy to assassinate the crusade’s leader, Warmaster Macaroth. With enemies all around them and no one to trust, Gaunt and his men must find a way to save the warmaster and prevent the Sabbat Worlds Crusade from falling into anarchy – even if it means waging war on their supposed allies.Read by Toby Longworth.

Planetside


Michael Mammay - 2018
    So when Colonel Carl Butler answers the call from an old and powerful friend, he knows it's something big—and he's not being told the whole story. A high councilor's son has gone MIA out of Cappa Base, the space station orbiting a battle-ravaged planet. The young lieutenant had been wounded and evacuated—but there's no record of him having ever arrived at hospital command. The colonel quickly finds Cappa Base to be a labyrinth of dead ends and sabotage: the hospital commander stonewalls him, the Special Ops leader won't come off the planet, witnesses go missing, radar data disappears, and that’s before he encounters the alien enemy. Butler has no choice but to drop down onto a hostile planet—because someone is using the war zone as a cover. The answers are there—Butler just has to make it back alive…

Into the Dark


J.A. Sutherland - 2014
    Her options are few. She must marry and watch a stranger run the lands, or become a penniless tenant and see the lands she so dearly loves sold off. Yet there may be another option, one that involves becoming a midshipman on a shorthanded spaceship with no other women.

Ark Royal


Christopher G. Nuttall - 2014
    -Royal Navy Motto Seventy years ago, the interstellar supercarrier Ark Royal was the pride of the Royal Navy. But now, her weapons are outdated and her solid-state armour nothing more than a burden on her colossal hull. She floats in permanent orbit near Earth, a dumping ground for the officers and crew the Royal Navy wishes to keep out of the public eye. But when a deadly alien threat appears, the modern starships built by humanity are no match for the powerful alien weapons. Ark Royal and her mismatched crew must go on the offensive, buying time with their lives. And yet, with a drunkard for a Captain, an over-ambitious first officer and a crew composed of reservists and the dregs of the service, do they have even the faintest hope of surviving......and returning to an Earth which may no longer be there?

The Silver Ships


S.H. Jucha - 2015
    Recognizing a once in a lifetime opportunity to make first contact, Alex pulls off a daring maneuver to latch on to the derelict.Alex discovers the ship was attacked by an unknown craft, the first of its kind ever encountered. The mysterious silver ship's attack was both instant and deadly.What enfolds is a story of the descendants of two Earth colony ships, with very different histories, meeting 700 years after their founding and uniting to defend humanity from the silver ships.

The Lost Starship


Vaughn Heppner - 2014
    The vessel's dying crew set the AI on automatic to defend the smashed rubble of their planet. Legend has it the faithful ship continues to patrol the empty battlefield, obeying its last order throughout the lonely centuries. In the here and now, Earth needs a miracle. Out of the Beyond invade the New Men, stronger, faster and smarter than the old. Their superior warships and advanced technology destroy every fleet sent to stop them. Their spies have infiltrated the government and traitors plague Earth’s military. Captain Maddox of Star Watch Intelligence wonders if the ancient legend could be true. Would such an old starship be able to face the technology of the New Men? On the run from killers, Maddox searches for a group of talented misfits. He seeks Keith Maker, a drunken ex-strikefighter ace, Doctor Dana Rich the clone thief stuck on a prison planet and Lieutenant Valerie Noonan, the only person to have faced the New Men in battle and survived to tell about it. Maddox has to find a place hidden in the Beyond and bring back a ship no one can enter. If he fails, the New Men will replace the old. If he succeeds, humanity might just have a fighting chance…